Our work – from convening partners, to aligning agendas and combining resources – has attracted attention from national partners, including A Way Home America (AWHA). AWHA is a national initiative to build the movement to prevent and end homelessness among young people. It consists of homeless youth providers, advocates, researchers, government agencies, philanthropists and young people uniting be
hind a common goal to end youth homelessness. This summer, after a nationwide search, AWHA invited three communities (Cleveland, Austin and Los Angeles) to support national learning through launching 100-Day Challenges, an effort supported by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Casey Family Programs; Melville Charitable Trust and Raikes Foundation. The challenges will identify and execute innovative practices to end youth and young adult homelessness, community by community. The challenges do not provide additional dollars for services directly. What these challenges offer is innovative support and technical assistance to set ambitious goals to work differently with what we do have as we identify resources that will scale up what works across the United States. With guidance from the Rapid Results Institute, Cleveland, Austin and Los Angeles have each formed multi-agency teams, set ambitious 100-day goals and are now pursuing those goals through intensive collaboration and innovation. Our ambitious goal is to house 100 homeless young adults in 100 days, and to strengthen support systems so that no child in Cuyahoga County will age out of the foster care system into homelessness ever again.
